Warner 20 #2
I shoot off a quick response: Send me the files
A buzz as she answers: Okay
A second buzz: We were also really hoping to talk to Rosabelle
A third buzz: Do you know when she’ll be out of the hospital?
A fourth buzz: Is there a reason why you’re responding to Aya but you won’t respond to me? This is Jing, by the way, I don’t know if you saved my number?
A fifth buzz: I’m not offended, just curious
I put the pager away on the sixth buzz, my jaw tightening reflexively.
I have no idea when Rosabelle might be released from recovery.
I’m hoping the medics can discharge her tonight, but it all depends on how quickly she can be healed—and how long we have before she inevitably sends herself back into the hospital.
Her every instinct appears to be self-destructive.
James has to find a way to move on from this girl. Falling for someone with no regard for their own safety is like falling for the bullet that kills you.
The wind whips at my open coat again, the wool snapping against my legs.
Rosabelle was supposed to provide us with intel; we were supposed to work, at least to some degree, on the same side. Instead, she appears to be hatching her own reckless, destructive plans, and all without my approval. I’m beginning to worry she’ll prove more trouble than she’s worth.
My anger begins to simmer.
I welcome it, encouraging it. Preferring it.
There are too many prisons awaiting me in my own mind, and it’s occasionally tempting to choose a cell and lock myself inside. The fire of indignation is sometimes the only illumination I can offer myself in all this darkness.
I take a breath.
A soft breeze pushes through my hair, skimming my face, calming me down. A few vaguely familiar figures pass me by just then, most nodding deferentially without awaiting acknowledgment.
One woman slows down to say hello to me.
I don’t see what she looks like, because I don’t look at her.
Her energy is both repellent and unremarkable: a potent cloud of curiosity, desire, jealousy, and resentment.
Even in The Waffle I have to filter through this kind of tedious, emotional waste material on a regular basis; so much so that I seldom pause to acknowledge it.
During work hours, the population here easily swells into the tens of thousands; there’s plenty of activity on the streets, throngs of people milling about. But in the evenings, when the campus empties out—
The silence makes me almost euphoric.
I release a breath.
A few cars pass by.
Someone waves at me from across the street and I ignore this, carefully refolding the scrap of paper I’m still holding. I tuck it back into my pocket, determined to attend to this single task before dealing with the deluge awaiting me at my desk.
In a few strides I finally clear the remaining distance to the pink storefront, pausing for a moment upon reaching the familiar door. Antiqued, gold letters are printed across its glass window in an old-fashioned style. It reads:
Alphabet Snacks
A Little Old Bookshop
Then, in smaller type:
Open most days
Hours unpredictable
Staff occasional
I turn the handle and step inside to the sound of a soft bell, the scent of old books pleasantly overwhelming.
The back counter is unstaffed; there are no associates working today, and the store appears to be otherwise empty.
The titles here span all genres and categories, fiction and nonfiction alike, and all the titles in the shop are vintage—successfully recovered from years of censorship under The Reestablishment.
All Ella’s idea, of course.
The regime managed to gather and incinerate a great deal of titles, but globally our efforts at rebuilding lost libraries have proven thus far successful.
Publishers are still growing; new titles are being slowly produced.
But we’ve dedicated considerable effort to restoring and restocking literature around the world, resurrecting all kinds of libraries and bookstores.
Alphabet Snacks is its own unique experience.
It’s neither a library nor a bookstore. There’s no inventory or checkout system.
Titles are not restocked in a traditional sense.
There’s no register. No official employees.
These days, Alia usually swings by on her way to and from her design studio, opening and closing the store for us, but on days she can’t, someone else will try to step in.
Ella had wanted it to feel like magic.
It’s a place where more books simply appear when others disappear, serving no purpose but to encourage reading.
Everything in the store was curated by my wife.
Some titles were donations, but most of these books she found herself. She’d often take James on hours-long excursions to sort through unsorted stockpiles of military reclamations, because he enjoyed seeing the many artifacts of our old world.
I love it here.
Unabashedly. Wholeheartedly.
It feels like walking into Ella’s arms.
I wend my way through the tidy stacks, navigating toward the romance section on instinct.
The shelves are a little lighter than usual, because Ella hasn’t been able to restock in a while, but I like knowing that people have been using the shop as it was intended.
I reach into my pocket for that scrap of paper just as my pager buzzes, and I come to a reluctant halt before a table of worn paperbacks, unearthing the pager and the folded piece of paper at the same time.
An image of a windswept woman with dramatic hair gazes up at me from a faded book cover. I turn my eyes to the notifications.
Hugo is requesting to speak with you, sir
He’s waiting outside your office
It’s just that I’ve noticed you respond to more of Aya’s messages than mine and I was just wondering why
I drop the pager back into my pocket, then unfold Ella’s note.
Something historical this time? Happy endings only, please! Otherwise, choose whatever you like. I love you, thank you, you’re my favorite hero ? ?
I run my thumb over her handwriting before tucking the scrap of paper away.
I’d asked her once, years ago, why she preferred to read books with happy endings. Ella’s eyes had dimmed a little when she said, Life taught me enough about pain. I want to read stories that teach me about joy.
My chest tightens at the memory.
I pick up the paperback with the windswept heroine on the cover, then idly flip it over to skim the jacket copy.
A lifelong wallflower, Lady Katerina Carlisle has never been accused of extraordinary beauty. But being overlooked might cost her more than her vanity—she and her younger sisters might lose their home.
Her gutless father has gambled away their lives and teeters now on the edge of death. She has only weeks before a distant uncle is set to inherit her life—
At the soft bell signaling a new patron, I look up on instinct, though I can’t see the exit through these stacks.
Still, I sense no danger.
I return my eyes to the book, reconsidering the cover, the heroine withering against a doorway. I frown. Flip back to the jacket copy.
Lady Katerina’s life sounds difficult.
But promising.
With no hopes of making a successful match, Lady Katerina turns to a life of crime to keep the fires lit …
Until she’s caught in a fire of her own.
Xavier Drake, the Duke of Highcomb, never expected to meet his wife in the dead of night, having hauled her back into his study through a sash window. The madwoman had attempted to steal his mother’s emerald necklace, but upon being discovered in a compromising embrace—
I feel a heavy hand on my arm.
I sensed the approach but I wasn’t expecting to be touched. It’s taken me over a decade to master the art of being abruptly handled without reflexively committing murder, and when I slowly look up, still trying not to overreact, I’m grateful for having made all that effort.
I nearly rock back in surprise.
I have only a moment to register shock before he envelops me in a crushing hug, and his tender emotion is so palpable it’s hard not to be moved. But I’m stiff with tension. I don’t reciprocate this display of affection. I’m still holding the paperback.
Castle doesn’t seem to mind.
He draws away, bracing my shoulders, and looks me over. “Mr. Warner,” he says. “It’s always good to see you, son. What are you reading?”